Fark.com is a community website created by Drew Curtis allowing users to comment on a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. Links are submitted by Fark members, which are then approved for posting on the main page ("greenlit") by administrators. All links, approved or not, have threads associated with them where users can comment on the link. Fark moderators police the discussion threads to delete forbidden content (comments that violate the posting guidelines or otherwise threaten Fark's business model).

Totalfark.com is a premium version of Fark. Totalfark members are able to see, and comment on, all submitted articles (not just “greenlighted” articles on the main page). TotalFark requires a US$5 monthly fee to join, while Fark.com is free. Members of TotalFark have established an online community and frequently participate in “TotalFark discussions,” which are submitted links not meant to be "greenlit", but rather commented on and discussed by TotalFark members only. Such links are occasionally "greenlit", though, if the submissions are particularly interesting or embarrassing.

Fark.com also features regular “Photoshop contests” where users use a graphical editing program (such as Adobe Photoshop, from which the contest draws its name, or GIMP) to manipulate an image provided by the creator of the contest, or less commonly, according to a set theme as set out in written form. The image is typically manipulated for humorous effect, but sometimes is edited to create an aesthetically-pleasing image or to showcase a poster's image manipulation skill.

History

Originally, the web server on Drew Curtis's fark.com domain contained no content except for an image of a squirrel with large testicles (however, since the site redesign on April 25, 2007, all references to this large-testicled squirrel have been removed, with the exception of the 404 error page). Later, in 1999, the site introduced what would evolve into its current format as a way for Curtis to share what he considered interesting news postings with his friends instead of sending them numerous emails. Features such as link submission and forums have slowly been added over the years as popularity and participation grew. By January 2008, according to Curtis, the site received an estimated 52 million page views per month from 4 million unique visitors.

The term “farking” was originally intended as a euphemism for the verb, “fuck”. However, it has also come to refer to websites that have stopped responding due to a high load after being linked to from fark.com. Particularly small websites referenced by Fark headlines are often “farked,” meaning that their servers have received so much traffic that they have stopped responding completely (see also: Slashdot effect).

Fark and Something Awful have been engaged in a friendly rivalry of sorts, culminating in a Photoshop contest between the two sites, judged by celebrity Wil Wheaton. Contrary to popular belief, there actually is no real rivalry between Fark.com and Something Awful. This rivalry was propagated mostly as an inside joke by Lowtax, the owner of Something Awful. The joke comes from the fact that Curtis and Lowtax are close friends, and that Fark.com and Something Awful share some of the same readership.

There are certain sites which Fark.com will not link to, such as Geocities, or Ananova.com. The reason for not linking to The New York Times and The Washington Post is that these sites require a user registration. Submitting any link which requires registration is frowned upon by the Fark community. Members can post links to The New York Times or The Washington Post in the forums during a discussion, but may not submit these links directly through the queue.

Fark does not link to Ananova because the website had posted Fark's headlines without giving credit, in addition to posting many inaccurate articles. Ananova was receiving a great deal of traffic from Fark's links, while refusing to acknowledge Fark and reciprocate the gesture. While Ananova denied using Fark's headlines, Curtis specifically put a few “fake” links on the main page, which Ananova then posted. Curtis then decided not to accept links from their website.

Fark has often been criticized for running headlines and articles that are politically biased. However, they are accused of having both a conservative and a liberal bias. Curtis has stated that instead of trying to keep it in the middle, admins enjoy running both far-left and far-right articles. The top four hated “groups” on Fark.com are (in no specific order) PETA, Catholic priests, the French, and Duke University, according to Curtis.

Fark has been accused of selling preferential placement of story links on the main page. Drew responded to this by saying he had considered selling links he was already going to post to servers that could handle the bandwidth, such as CNN or ABC. He claims the only type of links that are paid are some of the adult content (typically “boobies”) links, and are clearly labeled as being sponsored. He also claims thatthereforefar all sponsored links have been clearly labeled adult content links to ensure the links are trojan-free, spam-free, and spyware-free. Adult content links that are not labeled as sponsored links are not paid for and were submitted by individual users. According to Drew, there is currently nothing in the works to sell links to sites such as AP, CNN, or anyone else. During a discussion in a forum on such accusations, the moderators would frequently delete comments that questioned whether this was for or against Fark.com philosophy. Many people also complain that Fark will not publish their link to their main page or “greenlight” their articles. All of the links submitted on Fark.com are submitted by individual users and are approved by administrators based on content. Articles that are posted to the main page are selected based on the content of the article, how funny the headline is, and sometimes how much bandwidth usage the site can handle. The administrators will rarely greenlight an article because they were emailed and asked to do so.

Redesign

On April 25th 2007, at 5:00 PM EST, a new design for the website was published. The new design was received with vocal disapproval due to a number of issues, including a change in layout and a seemingly indifferent attitude by site moderators towards the complaints. Perhaps most prominently, longtime site administrator Jeff bluntly told unhappy users that they would "get over it." After numerous complaints by users, Jeff issued an apology via Drew and took an extended break from website administration. During the days following the redesign, the site layout was fine-tuned based on suggestions.

There has also been continued concern over removal of ability to post pictures in certain threads. These threads have included such topics as "female oriented sports", and "rights of female strippers", signifying a possible crackdown on what might be deemed "inappropriate content" that has been shared in such threads in the past. Moderators who have deleted such images have stated that they violate Fark.com's terms of use. However, since the terms of use have not changed recently, some users have questioned why such policing is necessary, and indeed it appears such behavior has coincided with the recent redesign. Drew addressed this issue in a forum posting in which he commented that "advertisers do not like that crap," causing further user discontent over implied commercialization of the website.

Tags

The signature of Fark has always been the several tags given to stories by submitters - e.g. stupid, interesting, dumbass, etc. - that are displayed prominently alongside often witty headlines and a link to a forum to discuss that specific article. Tags that say “advice” or “survey” are used for discussion threads where comments are often voted upon. So many headlines were contributed about the state of Florida that it received its own tag as well. Tags that say “photoshop,” “audioedit” or “videoedit” are used for threads where digital content is edited for a humorous or artistic effect.

Tags that say “boobies” or “weeners” are used to post adult content or discussions, although recently “weeners” have faded away almost completely and “boobies” have been diverted to Foobies.com, in order for Fark.com to be more acceptable to a wider variety of advertisers. On Foobies.com, “weeners” appears occasionally. In the past, “Foobies.com” links that were considered safe for work would sometimes appear on the main page.

Finally, the news tag (and newsflash for even more important news) is used for news which is a matter of important breaking news, and an email is sent to the administrators notifying them that someone has submitted a “Newsflash.” Members are told to use this tag very sparingly and only for matters of extremely important breaking news. (In fact, members who submit “Newsflash” tags for subjects obviously not worthy of the tag - e.g. celebrity news or political commentary - can be suspended for a period of time.) All of the links that are posted on Fark are submitted by users and “greenlighted” by unpaid administrators or Drew Curtis himself. The administrators are personal friends of Drew, as are the moderators. The tags next to the articles represent the submitter's feelings on that article and do not necessarily represent the views of Fark or the administrator who greenlighted the article.

Next to an article on Fark appears a number in parentheses, such as: (105). Clicking on this number goes to the discussion about the article. The number in parentheses is the number of comments users have made. The discussion part of the thread is where readers are encouraged to comment, discuss, and often argue the content of the link. When the number of comments accumulate to various larger numbers, and the rate of new posts is considered to be faster than the ability to read them all, the number changes into something humorous such as “(lots),” “ (too many),” “(∞),” “(),” “(π)” or even “(√-1).”

Before January 1, 2008 articles discussing Wil Wheaton were given the “Wheaton” tag and articles discussing Christopher Walken were occasionally given the “Walken” tag, though Walken has never participated on Fark. These tags disappeared and no reason was given, but the Wheaton tag has made a comeback on January 9, 2008 with three Wheaton-related threads posted in one day.

Filters

The Fark.com forums use filters which replace profane, offensive, or text with the names of websites that provide criticism of Fark in the forum comments.[clarify]

Because the filters operate on any occurrence of the target strings, even if spaces are included, it is possible to post text that will invoke the filters in unintended ways. For example, the word "bitch" is displayed as "biatch", but “it's a bit chilly out” will appear as “it's a biatchilly out." Binary code (pure integers and ASCII) is converted back into a readable text in the filter, too.

Fark TV

In January 2007, Fark launched Fark TV, the much criticized online show attempting to replicate the humor of stories seen on the website. It is hosted at Superdeluxe.com. Plug links are regularly put up on Fark.com to promote new episodes, with the feedback being mixed at best, but mostly negative. The general consensus at Fark.com is that the comments lambasting Fark TV are funnier than Fark TV itself.

TotalFark.com

TotalFark.com is the subscription-based premium version of popular community web site Fark.com, a human-driven news aggregator for interesting news and web sites with an estimated 8,000-10,000 subscribers. Subscribers, known collectively as TotalFarkers or TFers, have the privilege of seeing and commenting on all links submitted by Fark.com users, as opposed to only those approved for inclusion on Fark.com by Fark's administrators. This means that TotalFark users are able to read and comment on links long before they hit the Fark.com main page. In addition, TotalFark subscribers have access to an "Upcoming Contests" page, allowing them more time to ready their entries before a contest (Photoshop, AudioEdit, etc.) goes "live". In a typical 24-hour period, TotalFark's main page includes 1,600 to 2,000 links and their associated comment threads, whereas Fark's main page includes only 60 to 80 links from among this number.

History of Totalfark.com

On February 4, 2002, Fark.com founder Drew Curtis introduced TotalFark.com as a subscription service, charging US$5 per month. The subscription fee has not been changed since this time. Six- and twelve-month options are available for $25 and $50, respectively.

On November 3, 2003, the "ignore list" feature was introduced for TotalFark members. This feature allows users to automatically hide the comments of specific users, that can be useful if a specific user is frequently offensive or otherwise annoying.

On August 16, 2004, gift subscriptions were introduced. This feature allowed TotalFark members to purchase TotalFark subscriptions for non-subscribing Fark.com users (known as Farkers or Liters). This feature is rather popular. A number of TotalFark members frequently give subscriptions to Fark users whom they see as positive contributors to the Fark.com comment threads, although the recipient may not be personally acquainted with the donor. The donor may choose to remain anonymous to the recipient.